Telangana High Court
Bondili Nagadhar Singh vs The Chief Secretary on 21 March, 2022
Author: Satish Chandra Sharma
Bench: Satish Chandra Sharma, Abhinand Kumar Shavili
THE HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SATISH CHANDRA SHARMA
AND
THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE ABHINAND KUMAR SHAVILI
WRIT PETITION (PIL) No.240 of 2020
ORDER:(Per the Hon'ble the Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma) The petitioner before this Court, a retired Government servant, has filed the present writ petition, by way of public interest litigation, stating that in the State of Telangana, officers are not being given postings, salaries are being paid to them without assigning them any work and officers are made to wait for postings for months together subjecting the State Exchequer to great financial burden.
The petitioner has prayed for the following relief:-
"For the reasons stated in the accompanying affidavit, it is hereby prayed that this Hon'ble Court may be pleased to issue a Writ, Order or direction more particularly one in the nature of Writ of Mandamus directing the Respondents to utilize the services of all the officers who are forced to await postings for months and years together and to recover the matching amounts paid towards salaries of those who were given posting subsequently from the erring responsible officers like the respondents herein and also initiate action deem fit to save the expenditure of the state towards salaries of the employees from whom no work was extracted and is being extracted and be pleased and pass such other order or orders may deem fit and proper in the circumstances of the case."
On 18.01.2022, this Court has directed the Chief Secretary to Government, State of Telangana, to file a counter affidavit. A detailed counter affidavit has been filed in the 2 matter. Paragraphs 4 to 15 of the counter affidavit are reproduced as under:-
"4. It is submitted that as per the Section-80(1) of the Act, the Central Government constituted Advisory Committee headed by Sri. C.R. Kamalanathan as Chairman on 29.03.2014 vide F.No.27/13/2013-SR(S) of DOPT. The Committee has allocated a total of 56,463 state cadre employees between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The details are given below:
State cadre employees allocated to Andhra Pradesh- 31,962 State cadre employees allocated to Telangana -24,501
5. It is submitted that the tenure of Sri. C.R. Kamalanathan Committee commenced from March, 2014 and ended on 31.03.2017. In this regard it may be relevant to mention here that the process of allocation was taken up in two phases i.e.; Tentative Allocation (TA) and Final Allocation (FA). After notifying TA, representations were called for from the aggrieved employees and after considering all the representations, FA was notified by the Central Government. For the purpose of relieving them from one state to other state, tentatively allocated employees against whose allocation objections were raised, were held up in the same state. The employees whose allocation was not objected, were relieved to the allocated state as per Circular Memo, No 7144/SR I/A1/2015-1, Dated: 16.07.2015 issued by the Chief Secretaries of both States.
6. It is submitted that the during the course of allocation there was large scale movement of employees from one place to another. During this process, for administrative reasons few employees/officials were on compulsory wait for a certain period of time.
7. It is further submitted that another major development has been the enforcement of Presidential Order 2018.
Telangana Public Employment (Organization of Local Cadres 3 and Regulation of Direct Recruitment) Order, 2018 (PO, 2018) has been issued vide G.O.Ms.No.124, G.A. (SPF&MC) Department, dt:30-08-2018. As per PO 2018, various posts have been organized into 3 local cadres, namely, District cadres, Zonal cadres and Multi-zonal cadres.
8. In August, 2021 Government have issued (91) G.Os approving the schemes for organization of local cadres in respect of various categories of posts in (85) HODs in (27) Departments keeping in view Para-3 of PO, 2018. Further, in order to operationalise the PO 2018, Government issued orders vide G.O.Ms.No:317, G.A.(SPF-I) Department, dated:06-12-2021 for allotment of employees to various local cadres.
9. It is submitted that allocations of employees to local cadres was made based on their options. The entire exercise was done in transparent manner. A total of 2,64,176 employees (1,86,988 District cadre and 77,188 Zonal/ Multi- Zonal cadre employees) were allocated to local cadres accordingly by 31st December, 2021. Subsequent to allocation to local cadres, Posting ordes are also issued to the 52,304 employees who were shifted to new local cadres.
10. Hence, because of all these developments and also due to certain administrative exigencies, some employees were on compulsory wait for some period of time. However with the cadre allocation and consequent posting in pursuance of G.O.Ms.No.317, G.A. (SPF-1) Department, dated: 06-12- 2021, this exercise now stands completed.
11. It is respectfully submitted that the petitioner has mentioned that certain Officers are waiting for postings as at para-(ii)(4) of the petitioners Affidavit. In this regard, it is submitted that at present there is no one officer in the category of Dy. Collector, Commercial Tax Officer, Supervisor in the TSBCL who is waiting for posting. The Officers alleged to be waiting for posting at para-(ii)(4) of the petitioners Affidavit namely, 27-Deputy Collectors, 28-Tahsildars, 4 6- Commercial Tax Officers, 5-Supervisors of TSBCL and 2 IAS Officers have already been given postings by the respective Departments.
12. It is further submitted that the contention of the Petitioner that 07 Officers of Prohibition & Excise Department are waiting for postings is also not correct as the Department have issued posting orders to certain Officers. Services of certain Officers are being utilized for special duties as detailed below:
1) Drafted as Special Officers in Districts for assisting the District Collectors and local Excise Officials in allotment of retail Liquor Wine shops for the license year 2019-21 and 2021-23
2) Assigned duties of collection and sharing of intelligence on all types of crime
3) Assigned duties of compilation of data during allocation of employees under Presidential Order, 2018
4) In light of the instructions issued in the review meeting chaired by the Chief Minister on 28-1-2022 on control of drugs and in order to streamline enforcement activity in the State, teams were formed with the above officers and others to collect and analyze day-to-day work report on crime detection.
13. It is respectfully submitted that the services of the above officers are being put to optimum use in priority areas of the Department, keeping in view their experience and past record. Hence, the loss to State exchequer does not arise, because their services are utilized by the Department in various capacities.
14. Further, it is submitted that Government have issued instructions to the Departments of Secretariat/Head of the Departments to not to keep employees/officers on compulsory wait, vide Government Circular Memo No:67/Cabinet/A1/2021, dated: 27.12.2021.
515. In view of the above facts and circumstances, it is therefore prayed that the Hon'ble High Court, Hyderabad may be pleased to dismiss the W.P (PIL) No: 240 of 2020 as being devoid of merits and pass such order or orders as deemed fit and proper in the interest of justice."
The counter affidavit makes it very clear that it has been stated on oath by the Chief Secretary that at present, there is no officer in the categories of Deputy Collector, Commercial Tax Officer and Supervisor, waiting for posting and postings have been given by the respective Departments. Similar stand has been taken in respect of some of the other Departments also and it has been stated that at present no other officer is on compulsory wait.
In the light of the aforesaid, no further orders are required to be passed in the present writ petition (public interest litigation) and the same stands disposed of accordingly.
Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, shall stand closed. There shall be no order as to costs.
________________________ SATISH CHANDRA SHARMA, CJ _______________________ ABHINAND KUMAR SHAVILI, J 21.03.2022 JSU